When they first met, Robert McCrum found out the hard way how easily the world-famous author could be riled and left their rendezvous wondering who this ‘weird mix of frivolity and ferocity’ really was. Fifteen years later, he has finally found out I met Margaret – “Peggy” – Atwood for the first, and only, time in the autumn of 2010. She was 71, celebrating the 25th anniversary of her Handmaid’s Tale , a contemporary masterpiece. In advance of this rendezvous, I’d taken a few soundings of what